Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles and the like in this specification is included solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not suggested or represented that any of these matters formed part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed in Australia or elsewhere before the priority date of each claim of this application.
Remote control devices for garage door controllers have been in use for many years. Such devices are typically handheld units and include one or more buttons for issuing commands and in some cases, adjusting various controller settings. Remote control devices further include processing circuitry for sensing button pushes, and a transmitter for generating a suitable transmission signal (commonly an infa-red signal, or alternatively a radio frequency, Bluetooth or WIFI signal) to communicate to the controller information regarding the button pushed. The garage door controller includes a receiver that receives the transmission signal and processes the button information transmitted therein. The controller's response to the button push is dependent both on the identity of the button (where the device has a plurality of buttons) and the function assigned to the button, as well as the controller's current mode of operation.
For security reasons, signal transmissions from remote control devices for garage door controllers are encoded with a unique code that identifies the transmitter and permits the transmitter to communicate with the receiver. The receiver must be specifically coded before being used for the first time and then each time it is to be used with a new transmitter. A typical coding process involves placing the receiver in a ‘code-set state’, in which state the receiver accepts any transmission that it detects A specified remote control function is assigned to the transmitter button's unique code, which is stored in the controller's local memory as a ‘permitted’ transmitter, whose transmissions are to be received and actioned.
The code-set state is typically entered by pushing a button for similar device) on the receiver (for an ‘attended code set state’), or by pushing a button on the remote control that has been assigned in a previous coding operation as activating a code set state (for a ‘remote code set state’).
When the receiver is in a code-set state (and thus receiving all detected transmissions), there is a risk of the receiver being unable to distinguish between transmissions received from the intended transmitter (i. e the transmitter being coded) and those received from a foreign transmitter that is wholly unrelated to the coding operation. The risk is managed in some receivers by imposing a requirement that two transmissions must be detected before any action is taken in response to the receipt of the transmission. Although this does reduce the likelihood of an imperfect coding of a correct transmitter, it does not eliminate the possibility of an incorrect transmitter being coded, should that unintended transmitter be operated twice during the code setting period.
Coding an incorrect transmitter to a receiver can be very inconvenient, especially when the transmitter cannot easily be deleted from the receiver's memory. In these circumstances, it is usually necessary for the user to delete all transmitters from the receiver's memory and to re-code the correct transmitter or transmitters.
Transmitters that are to be coded can be placed in a special state that allows a code-set transmission to be communicated to the receiver. However, equipping remote controls with the necessary functionality to enter the special state is not generally desirable, due to the requirements for additional circuitry for mode switches, indicators arid power control. It also requires additional steps to be undertaken by the user during the code set procedure. For these reasons, such measures are relatively rarely implemented.
It is known to use selected buttons on remote control transmitters to ‘toggle’ a receiver's output. The arrangement is often used, for example, to turn on and off remote control lights or to turn ON and OFF various modes of operation. Typically, the remote control output changes state in sequence, each time a transmitter button assigned to the remote control function is pressed. However, a problem arises when the user is unable to determine the current state of the remote control's output and thus does not know whether the output is turned ON or OFF. The user is therefore unable to predict the result of the next press of the transmitter button. One solution is to assign ON and OFF commands to two different buttons on the remote control, however the approach necessarily entails a reduction in the number of devices that can be controlled, or the number of functions that can be implemented.
Another limitation of existing remote control devices is their failure to allow a user to communicate a clear intention to operate a particular remote control function. For example, in the context of a remote control device for a garage door controller, it is apparent that a user's operation of the remote control to dose the garage door should require a greater demonstration of intent in comparison to other operations, such as to open the garage door. This is because the consequences of an accidental push of the remote control button causing the door to close are potentially more hazardous to persons in the vicinity of the door than the consequences of an unintended door opening.
A further limitation of existing remote control devices is that they cease signal transmissions as soon as the relevant button is released, Although some remote control devices are configured to complete a transmission that is already underway, no indication is sent to the receiver that the button has been released. When the receiver processes transmissions in a way so as to generate an output that mimics the transmitter button press, the receiver must allow for missed transmissions due to possible interference. Failing to account for interference will result in the output turning off briefly when a transmission is not received and then on again when reception is reinstated. A known method of accounting for interference is to implement a timeout feature, whereby the receiver does not turn the output off until no transmissions have been received for a prescribed period, referred to as a ‘timeout period’. However, timeouts have their own limitations, in that, in the absence of interference, the receiver maintains an output for a time longer than is required.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,795,011 describes a remote control device for a television with a ‘help’ features that provides information about the button that has been pushed. The feature is triggered by holding down the button for a very short period of time, or alternatively for a longer than usual period of time. In these scenarios, instead of the remote control actioning the pushed button, the system communicates help information to the user, either from the remote control device itself or from the controlled device (eg. displaying on the television screen).
The present invention aims to provide an alternative approach to addressing one or more of the deficiencies of existing remote control devices, receivers and control systems discussed above.